Stepdaughter: Second tabloid employee infected with inhaled anthrax doing well after surgery

Published: Tuesday, October 16, 2001

AMANDA RIDDLEAssociated Press Writer

BOCA RATON, Fla. {AP} A supermarket tabloid worker who became the second to be diagnosed with a rare and deadly form of anthrax was recovering after surgery, his stepdaughter said Tuesday.

Ernesto Blanco, 73, was feeling good and talking with family members from his hospital bed, stepdaughter Maria Orth said.

Blanco had earlier tested positive for exposure to the bacteria and was hospitalized, but health officials thought his illness was pneumonia. On Monday, they confirmed he had the inhaled form of anthrax, and doctors performed surgery to insert tubes into his lungs to help him breathe after fluid collected.

Orth said he remained in intensive care at Cedars Medical Center in Miami. The hospital did not immediately return a phone call to The Associated Press for comment.

Photo editor Bob Stevens, 63, who also worked in the American Media Inc. building, died Oct. 5 of the same disease.

Until the two case at American Media, only 18 instances of inhaled anthrax had been reported in the United States since the start of the 20th century, the most recent in 1976 in California. Unless the disease is treated before symptoms begin, 90 percent of victims die within days.

Inhaled anthrax is much more lethal than the more common cutaneous  or skin  form, which has been found in an employee of NBC News in New York and in the young son of a producer for ABC News.

In Florida, anthrax spores were found in American Media's mailroom and on Stevens' computer keyboard at The Sun. Six other American Media employees have tested positive for exposure to anthrax, but none has shown signs of infection.

Experts estimate that 8,000 to 10,000 spores must be taken into the lungs to cause the form of anthrax that killed Stevens.

At the Boca Raton postal building that handles American Media's mail, health officials said a "minuscule" amount of anthrax spores was found on Monday.

The spores were on equipment that held sorted letters for American Media and other companies, U.S. Postal Service spokesman Joseph Breckenridge said.

Officials had closed the mail processing area Monday, and the Environmental Protection Agency planned to clean it, said Frank Penela, spokesman for the state health department.

Postal employee Paul Counts said the mail sorting area at the post office opened at its regularly scheduled time Tuesday. The building is not open to the public.

"Everything's back to normal. We're back in business," said Counts, who sorts the mail in the back room.

The city's main post office, across the street, was not affected.

Postal workers who had come in contact with American Media mail had already been given nasal swabs that came back negative for anthrax, said Postal Inspector Manny Gonzalez. Thirty-one postal workers were tested and are taking antibiotics, health officials said.

Blood tests on about 400 employees and visitors of American Media were completed Monday, and more than 300 American Media employees were expected to undergo another round of tests as early as Wednesday, said Tim O'Connor, a county health department spokesman.